OROONOKO.
Drury-Lane.
Drury-Lane.
Drury-Lane.
Drury-Lane.
Southern’s tragedy ofOroonoko, which has not been acted, we believe, for some years, has been brought forward here to introduce Mr. Kean as the Royal Slave. It was well thought of. We consider it as one of his best parts. It is also a proof to us of what we have always been disposed to think, that Mr. Kean, when he fully gives up his mind to it, is as great in pure pathos as in energy of action or discrimination of character. In general, he inclines to the violent and muscular expression of passion, rather than to that of its deep, involuntary, heart-felt workings. If he does this upon any theory of the former style of expression being more striking and calculated to produce an immediate effect, we think the success of hisRichard II.and of this play alone (not to mention innumerable fine passages in his other performances), might convince him of the perfect safety with which he may trust himself in the hands of the audience, whenever he chuses to indulge in ‘the melting mood.’ We conceive that the range of his powers is greater in this respect than he has yet ventured to display, and that if the taste of the town is not yet ripe for the change, he has genius enough to lead it, wherever truth and nature point the way. His performance ofOroonokowas for the most part decidedly of a mild and sustained character; yet it was highly impressive throughout, and most so, where it partook least of violence or effort. The strokes of passion which came unlooked for and seemed to take the actor by surprise, were those that took the audience by surprise, and only found relief in tears. Of this kind was the passage in which, after having been harrowed up to the last degree of agony and apprehension at the supposed dishonourable treatment of his wife, and being re-assured on that point, he falls upon her neck with sobs of joy and broken laughter, saying, ‘I knew they could not,’ or words to that effect. The first meeting between him andImoindawas also very affecting; and the transition to tenderness and love in it was even finer than the expression of breathless eagerness and surprise. There were many other passages in which the feelings, conveyed by the actor, seemed to gush from his heart, as if its inmost veins had been laid open. In a word, Mr. Kean gave to the part that glowing and impetuous, and at the same time deep and full expression, which belongs to the character of that burning zone, which ripens the souls of men, as well as the fruits of the earth! The most striking partin the whole performance was in the uttering of a single word.Oroonoko, in consequence of his gentle treatment, and the flattering promises that are held out to him of safe conduct to his own country, of the restoration of his liberty and his belovedImoinda, thinks well of the persons into whose hands he has fallen; and it is in vain thatAboam(Mr. Rae) tries to work him up to suspicion and revenge by general descriptions of the sufferings of his countrymen, or of the cruelty and treachery of their white masters: but at the suggestion of the thought, that if they remain where they are,Imoindawill become the mother, and himself, a prince and a hero, the father of a race of slaves, he starts and the manner in which he utters the ejaculation ‘Hah!’ at the world of thought which is thus shewn to him, like a precipice at his feet, resembles the first sound that breaks from a thunder-cloud, or the hollow roar of a wild beast, roused from its lair by hunger and the scent of blood. It is a pity that the catastrophe does not answer to the grandeur of the menace; and that this gallant vindicator of himself and his countrymen fails in his enterprise, through the treachery and cowardice of those whom he attempts to set free, but ‘who were by nature slaves!’ The story of thisservile waris not without a parallel elsewhere: it reads ‘a great moral lesson’ to Europe, only changingblackintowhite; and the manner in whichOroonokois prevailed on to give up his sword, and his treatment afterwards, by a man in British uniform, seems to have been the model of the Convention of Paris. It only required one thing to have made it complete, that the Governor, who is expected in the island, should have arrived in time to break the agreement, and save the credit of his subaltern. The political allusions throughout, that is, the appeals to common justice and humanity, against the most intolerable cruelty and wrong, are so strong and palpable, that we wonder the piece is not prohibited. There is that black renegadeOthman, who betrays his country in the hopes of promotion, and the favour of his betters: how like he is to many a white-faced loon, but that ‘the devil has not damned them black!’ Politics apart—Oroonokois a very interesting moral play. It is a little tedious sometimes, and a little common-place at all times, but it has feeling and nature to supply what it wants in other respects. The negroes in it (we could wish them out of it, but then there would be no play) are veryugly customersupon the stage. One blackamoor in a picture is an ornament, but a whole cargo of them is more than enough. This play puts us out of conceit with both colours, theirs and our own; the sooty slave’s, and his cold, sleek, smooth-faced master’s.—Miss Somerville was a great relief to the natural and moral deformity of the scene. Shelooked like theideaof the poet’s mind. Her resigned, pensive, unconscious look and attitude, at the moment she is about to be restored to the rapturous embrace of her lover, was a beautiful dramatic picture. She is an acquisition to the milder parts of tragedy. She interests on the stage, for she is interesting in herself. She cannot help being a heroine, if she but shews herself. She was as elegantly dressed inImoinda, for an Indian maid, in light, flowered drapery, as she was inImogine, for a lady of old romance, in trains of lead-coloured satin. Her voice is sweet, but lost in its own sweetness; and we who hear her at some distance, can only catch ‘the music of her honey-vows,’ like the indistinct murmur of a hive of bees. Mr. Bengough does not improve upon us by acquaintance. All that we have of late discovered in him is that he has grey eyes. Little Smith made an excellent representative of the coasting Guinea captain. John Bull could not desire to have better justice done to his mind or his body.—Southern, the author ofOroonoko, was also the author ofIsabella, or the Fatal Marriage, in both of which ‘he often has beguiled us of our tears.’ He died at the age of eighty-six, in 1746. Gray, the poet, speaks thus of him in a letter, dated from Burnham, in Buckinghamshire, 1737. ‘We have here old Mr. Southern, at a gentleman’s house a little way off: he is now seventy-seven years old, and has almost wholly lost his memory: but is as agreeable as an old man can be: at least I persuade myself so, when I look at him, and think ofIsabellaandOroonoko.’